The Backwoods Boat Ride

[Side: Can I just preface this by mentioning that I am from North Carolina and am not insensitive to assaults on the "rural and uncultured" South, which is many times, far from accurate?]


Boarding the sunset cruise at Cedar Key, there was the usual air of expectancy. We might see a dolphin. Watching the sun disappear over the endless expanse of the Gulf will be beautiful. The serene vision of birds making their way to islands for nighttime roosting will be peaceful. Maybe we'll meet some neat people, who love nature and appreciate the calmer things in life. You know, all that stuff.

I was miffed when our "nature guide" kept referring to the various heron species as "herring" (a type of fish). And even more perturbed when he pulled the boat over to an unidentified object which turned out to be a pelican that died from fishing line strangulation. Captain uttered not a word of instructive words to share the dangers careless fisherman pose to wildlife. Instead, he just pulled away.


But these two irregularities don't begin to touch on the company we shared on this little marine adventure. It took mere seconds after leaving the dock to discover the strange Kentucky flavor in the air. We were surrounded by no less than 9 members of the Backwoods family--several generations apparently, and not entirely distinguishable by sight alone.

Smushed up closely together on a slow moving, overbooked pontoon boat, I nearly jumped overboard on more than one occasion. Instead of recreating the experience for you, here's some select dialogue which we not only witnessed, but were asked to participate in:


PART I

• Grandpappy: "Yeeep. I done saw one 'o dem water speeckets today from da pier."
• (My husband): "You mean a water spout?"
• Grandpappy: "Yeaaaah!" (followed by a crunching, sheeshing sound that was a laugh, I think.)
• Mamma: "You shore it wu'un a dawnphin...spoutin' it's air up?"
• Grandpappy: "Sheeeeeiiit, woman. You think a dawphin can spout 40 feet in da air?"

We nearly died when the hum of the engine died down to nothing as Captain stranded us for 32 minutes for sunset. Every redneck camera in North America came to the bow like it was the last sunset on earth...and the first they'd ever seen. If it hadn't been cloudy, we would have been trapped for another good 15 minutes. But the Gods were looking down on us that evening.

PART II.

Backwoods kids are flying all over the boat, nearly going over the railings before a "responsible" adult reaches to pull them back by their life preservers. (This was our 13 year old son most of the time.)

• Mamma: "Well, they my grandbabies (referring to Bubba and a little girl, whose name I regrettably didn't catch), but they call all of us 'Mamma.' They call her 'mamma' and they call her 'mama' and they call her 'mamma.' They just call hewum daddy."
• Grandpappy (apparently speaking to another child sitting on the bow of the boat):
  "You think you a hot dawg seeetin' up thare, aintcha?" And then, "Hey there, hot dawg. Hey there, hot dawg. Hey there, hot dawg. (This was repeated 27 times within a 30 minute period; the kid probably felt like a pet parrot. The urge to swim to an island like an outcast raccoon has never been so strong.)

Just multiply this times 2 hours.

I ended the boat time by wrapping a two dollar tip on a business card from a local art shop on which I had scribbled these words: "It's heron, not herring." Husband, D-Man and I all hopped off the boat and high-tailed it to the car like a wild elephant was on our trail. We never looked back. And a cigarette never seemed so good.

I will say that seeing the Frigate birds was a real plus. Yeah.